'Glorious' a solid start to Western trilogy

Updated 1:43 pm, Friday, May 9, 2014

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Texas writer Jeff Guinn, whose previous books have been well-researched and compellingly written nonfiction accounts of Charles Manson, Bonnie and Clyde, and the gunfight at the OK Corral, turns to fiction in “Glorious,” a rousing Western that is the first book of a planned trilogy. Cash McLendon is not your John Wayne type of Western hero. The very definition of the word tenderfoot, he can't ride a horse (though he can stay on a mule), and while he has purchased a Navy Colt .45-caliber revolver, he has no idea how to shoot it with accuracy. Cash is a city slicker from St. Louis, from which he had to skedaddle in a hurry because his mentally ill wife — beloved daughter of his powerful industrial mogul boss — OD'd on the laudanum that was keeping her in line. A vicious enforcer in pursuit, he ends up in Glorious, a pop-up mining town in the Arizona territory, circa 1872, and quickly falls in with a cast of characters that is as motley a crew as any Western's cast. Guinn's particular talent is to bring characters to life — even if, like Cash, they're not particularly likable. He also paints a vivid picture of the time and place. The story ends rather abruptly, so get busy, Jeff, and write the next chapter!